SLEEP alone goes far to revive a little dog, and fasting
sharpens the wits. Bobby was so tired that he slept soundly, but so hungry
that he woke early, and instantly alert to his situation. It was so very
early of a dark winter morning that not even the sparrows were out foraging
in the kirkyard for dry seeds. The drum and bugle had not been sounded from
the Castle when the milk and dustman’s carts began to clatter over the
frozen streets. With the first hint of dawn stout fishwives, who had tramped
all the way in from the piers of Newhaven with heavily laden creels on their
heads, were lustily crying their “caller herrin’.” Soon fagot men began to
call up the courts of tenements, where fuel was bought by the scant bundle:
“Are ye cauld?” Many a human waif in the tall buildings about the lower end
of Greyfriars kirkyard was cold, even in bed, but,' in his thick underjacket
of fleece, Bobby was as warm as a plate of breakfast toast. With a vigorous
shaking he broke and scattered the crust of snow that burdened his shaggy
thatch. Then he lay down on the grave again, with his nose on his paws.
Urgent matters occupied the little dog's mind. To deal with these affairs he
had the long head of the canniest Scot, wide and high between the ears, and
a muzzle as determined as a little steel trap. Small and forlorn as he was,
courage, resource and purpose marked him.

As soon as the door of the caretaker’s lodge opened he would have to creep
under the fallen slab again. To lie in such a cramped position, hour after
hour, day after day, was enough to break the spirit of any warm-blooded
creature that lives. It was an exquisite form of torture not long to be
endured. And to get his single meal a day at Mr. Traill’s place Bobby had to
watch for the chance opening of the wicket to slip in and out like a thief.
The furtive life is not only perilous, it outrages every feeling of an
honest dog. It is hard for him to live at all without the approval and the
cordial consent of men. The human order hostile, he quickly loses his
self-respect and drops to the Pariah class. Already wee Bobby had the look
of the neglected. His pretty coat was dirty and unkempt. In his run across
country, leaves, twigs and burrs had become entangled in his long hair, and
his legs and underparts were caked with mire.

Instinctively any dog struggles to escape tho fate of the outcast. By every
art he possesses he ingratiates himself with men. One that has his
usefulness in the human scheme of things often is able to make his own terms
with life, to win the niche of his choice. Bobby's one talent that was of
practical value to society was his hunting instinct for every small animal
that burrows and prowls and takes toll of men's labor. In Greyfriars
kirkyard was work to be done that he could do. For quite three centuries
rats and mice had multiplied in this old sanctuary garden from which cats
were chased and dogs excluded. Every breeze that blew carried challenges to
Bobby’s offended nose. Now, in the crisp gray dawn, a big rat came out into
the open and darted here and there over the powdering of dry snow that
frosted the kirkyard.

A leap, as if released from a spring, and Bobby captured it. A snap of his
long muzzle, a jerk of his stoutly set head, and the victim hung limp from
his grip. And he followed another deeply seated instinct when he carried the
slain to Auld Jock’s grave. Trophies of the chase were always to be laid at
the feet of the master.

“Gude dog! eh, but ye’re a bonny wee fechter!” Auld Jock had always said
after such an exploit; and Bobby had been petted and praised until he nearly
wagged his crested tail off with happiness and pride. Then he had been given
some choice-tidbit of food as a reward for his prowess. The farmer of
Cauldbrae had on such occasions admitted that Bobby might be of use about
barn and dairy, and Mr. Traill had commended his capture of prowlers in the
dining-room. But Bobby was “ower young” and had not been “put to the vermin”
as a definite business in life. He caught a rat, now and then, as he chased
rabbits, merely as a diversion. When he had caught this one he lay down
again. But after a time he got up deliberately and trotted down to the
encircling line of old courtyarded tombs. There were nooks and crannies
between and behind these along the wall into which the caretaker could not
penetrate with sickle, rake and spade, that formed sheltered rim ways for
rodents.

A long, low, weasel-like dog that could flatten himself on the ground, Bobby
squeezed between railings and pedestals, scrambled over fallen fragments of
sculptured urns, trumpets, angels' wings, altars, skull and cross-bones, and
Latin-inscribed scrolls. He went on his stomach under holly and laurel
shrubs, burdocks, thistles, and tangled, dead vines. Here and there he lay
in such rubbish as motionless as the effigies carven on marble biers. With
the growing light grew the heap of the slain on Auld Jock’s grave.

Having done his best, Bobby lay down again, worse in appearance than before,
but with a stouter heart. He did not stir, although the shadows fled, the
sepulchers stood up around the field of snow, and slabs and shafts camped in
ranks on the slope. Smoke began to curl up from high, clustered
chimney-pots; shutters were opened, and scantily clad women had hurried
errands on decaying gallery and reeling stairway. Suddenly the Castle
turrets were gilded with pale sunshine, and all the little cells in the
tall, old houses hummed and buzzed and clacked with life. The University
bell called scattered students to morning prayers. Pinched and elfish faces
of children appeared at the windows overlooking the kirkyard. The sparrows
had instant news of that, and the little winged beggars fluttered up to the
lintels of certain deep-set casements, where ill-fed bairns scattered
breakfasts of crumbs.

Bobby watched all this without a movement. He shivered when the lodge door
was heard to open and shut and heavy footsteps crunched on the gravel and
snow around the church. “Juist fair silly” on his quaking legs he stood up,
head *nd tail drooped. But he held his ground bravely, and when the
caretaker sighted him he trotted to meet the man, lifted himself on his hind
legs, his short, shagged fore paws on his breast, begging attention and
indulgence. Then he sprawled across the great boots, asking pardon for the
liberty he was taking. At last, all in a flash, he darted back to the grave,
sniffed at it, and stood again, head up, plumy tail crested, all excitement,
as much as to say:

“Come awa’ ower, man, an’ leuk at the braw sicht.”

If he could have barked, his meaning would have carried more convincingly,
but he “hauded ’is gab” loyally. And, alas, the caretaker was not to be
beguiled. Mr. Traill had told him Bobby had been sent back to the hill farm,
but here he was, "perseestent” little rascal, and making some sort of bid
for the man's favor. Mr. Brown took his pipe out of his mouth in surprised
exasperation, and glowered at the dog.

“Gang awa’ oot wi’ ye!”

But Bobby was back again coaxing undauntedly, abasing himself before the
angry man, in* sisting that he had something of interest to show. The
caretaker was literally badgered and cajoled into following him. One glance
at the formidable heap of the slain, and Mr. Brown dropped to a seat on the
slab.

“Preserve us a’!”

He stared from the little dog to his victims, turned them over with his
stout stick and counted them, and stared again. Bobby fixed his pleading
eyes on the man and stood at strained attention while fate hung in the
balance.

All this was said in a tone of astonished comment, so non-committal of
feeling that Bobby’s tail began to twitch in the stress of his anxiety. When
the caretaker spoke again, after a long, puzzled frowning, it was to express
a very human bewilderment and irritation.

“Noo, what am I gangin’ to do wi’ ye?”

Ah, that was encouraging! A moment before, he had ordered Bobby out in no
uncertain tone. After another moment he referred the question to a higher
court.

“Jeanie, woman, come awa’ oot a meenit, wull ye?”

A hasty pattering of carpet-slippered feet on the creaking snow, around the
kirk, and there was the neatest little apple-cheeked peasant woman in
Scotland, “snod” from her smooth, frosted hair, spotless linen mutch and
lawn kerchief, to her white, lamb’s-wool stockings.

“Here’s the bit dog I was tellin’ ye aboot; An’ see for yersel’ what he’s
done noo.”

“Ay, he did. Thae terriers are sperity, by the ordinar’. Ane o’ them, let
into the com exchange a murky nicht, killed saxty in ten meenits, an’ had to
be dragged awa’ by the tail. Noo, what I am gangin’ to do wi’ the takin’ bit
I dinna ken.”

It is very certain that simple Mistress Jean Brown had never heard of Mr.
Dick’s advice to Miss Betsy Trotwood on the occasion when young David
Copperfield presented himself, travel-stained and weary, before his good
aunt. But out of her experience of wholesome living she brought forth the
same wise opinion.

“I’d gie him a gude washin’ first of a\ Jamie. He leuks like some puir,
gaen-aboot dog.” And she drew her short, blue-stuff gown back from Bobby’s
grateful attentions.

The caretaker got up stiffly, for such snell weather was apt to give him
twinges in his joints. In him a youthful enthusiasm for dogs had suddenly
revived. Besides, although he would have denied it, he was relieved at
having the main issue, as to what was to be done with this fourfooted
trespasser, side-tracked for a time. Bobby followed him to the lodge at an
eager trot, and he dutifully hopped into the bath that was set on the rear
doorstep. Mr. Brown scrubbed him vigorously, and Bobby splashed and swam and
churned the soapy water to foam. He scrambled out at once, when told to do
so, and submitted to being dried with a big, tow-linen towel. This was all a
delightful novelty to Bobby. Heretofore he had gone into any convenient tarn
or bum to swim, and then dried himself by rolling on the heather and running
before the wind. Now he was bundled up ignominiously in an old flannel
petticoat, carried across a sanded kitchen floor and laid on a warm hearth.

“Doon wi’ ye!” was the gruff order. Bobby turned around and around on the
hearth, like some little wild dog making a bed in the jungle, before he
obeyed. He kept very still during the reading of a chapter and the singing
of a Psalm, as he had been taught to do at the farm by many A reminder from
Auld Jock's boot. And he kept away from the breakfast-table, although the
walls of his stomach were collapsed as flat as the sides of an empty pocket.

It was such a clean, shining little kitchen, with the scoured deal table,
chairs and cupboard, and the firelight from the grate winked so on pewter
mugs, copper kettle, willow-patterned plates and diamond panes, that Bobby
blinked too. Flowers bloomed in pots on the casement sills, and a little
brown skylark sang, fluttering as if it would soar, in a gilded cage. After
the morning meal Mr. Brown lighted his pipe and put on his bonnet to go out
again, when he bethought him that Bobby might be needing something to eat.

She set down a plate with a spoonful of porridge on it, a cold potato, some
bread crusts, and the leavings of a broiled caller herrin*. It was a
generous breakfast for so small a dog, but Bobby had been without food for
quite forty hours, and had done an amazing amount of work in the meantime.
When he had eaten all of it he was still hungry. As a polite hint, he
polished the empty plate with his pink tongue and looked up expectantly; but
the best-intentioned people, if they have had little to do with dogs, cannot
read such signs.

“Ye needna lick the posies aff,” the wifie said, good-humoredly, as she
picked the plate up to wash it. She thought to put down a tin basin of
water. Bobby lapped it so eagerly, yet so daintily, that she added: “He’s a
weel-broucht-up tyke, Jamie."

“He is so. Noo, we’ll see hoo weel he can leuk.” In a shamefaced way he
fetched from a tool-box a long-forgotten, strong little currycomb, such as
is used on shaggy Shetland ponies. With that he proceeded to give Bobby such
a grooming as he had never had before. It was a painful operation, for his
thatch was a stubborn mat of crisp waves and knotty tangles to his plumy
tail and down to his feathered toes. He braced himself and took the
punishment without a whimper, and when it was done he stood cascaded with
dark-silver ripples nearly to the floor.

“Ay, he’s bonny by the ordinar’. It wad be grand, noo, gin the meenister’d
fancy ’im an1 tak’ ’im into the manse.”

The wifie considered this ruefully. “Jamie, I was wishin’ ye didna hae to—”

But what she wished he did not have to do, Mr. Brown did not stop to hear.
He suddenly clapped his bonnet on his head and went out. He had an urgent
errand on High Street, to buy grass and flower seeds and tools that would
certainly be needed in April. It took him an hour or more of shrewd looking
about for the best bargains, in a swarm of little barnacle and cellar shops,
to spend a few of the kirk’s shillings. When he found himself, to his
disgust, looking at a nail-studded collar for a little dog he called himself
a “doited auld fule,” and tramped back across the bridge.

At the kirkyard gate he stopped and read the notice through twice: “No dogs
permitted.” That was as plain as “Thou shalt not.” To the pious caretaker
and trained servant it was the eleventh commandment. He shook his head,
sighed, and went in to dinner. Bobby was not in the house, and the master of
it avoided inquiring for him. He also avoided the wifie’s wistful eye, and
he busied himself inside the two kirks all the afternoon.

Because he was in the kirks, and the beautiful memorial windows of stained
glass were not for the purpose of looking out, he did not see a dramatic
incident that occurred in the kirkyard after three o’clock in the afternoon.
The prelude to it really began with the report of the time-gun at one. Bobby
had insisted upon being let out of the lodge kitchen, and had spent the
morning near Auld Jock’s grave and in nosing about neighboring slabs and
thorn bushes. When the time - gun boomed he trotted to the gate quite openly
and waited there inside the wicket.

In such nipping weather there were no visitors to the kirkyard and the gate
was not opened. The music bells ran the gamut of old Scotch airs and ceased,
while he sat there and waited patiently. Once a man stopped to look at the
little dog, and Bobby promptly jumped on the wicket, plainly begging to have
it unlatched. But the passer-by decided that some lady had left her pet
behind, and would return for him. So he patted the attractive little
Highlander on the head and went on about his business.

Discouraged by the unpromising outlook for dinner that day, Bobby went
slowly back to the grave. Twice afterward he made hopeful pilgrimages to the
gate. For diversion he fell noiselessly upon a prowling cat and chased it
out of the kirkyard. At last he sat upon the table* tomb. He had escaped
notice from the tenements all the morning because the view from most of the
windows was blocked^ by washings, hung out and dripping, then freezing and
clapping against the old tombs. It was half-past three o'clock when a tiny,
wizened face popped out of one of the rude little windows in the decayed
Cunzie Neuk at the bottom of Candlemakers Row. Crippled Tammy Barr called
out in shrill excitement:

“Ailie! O-o-oh, Ailie Lindsey, there's the wee doggie!”

“Whaur?" The lassie's elfin face looked out from a low, rear window of the
Candlemakers' Guildhall at the top of the Row.

“It’s no’ so cauld. Gin I had twa gude feet I could gang the bit way wi’oot
shoon.”

“I ken it isna so cauld,” Ailie admitted, “but for a lassie it’s no’
respectable to gang to a grand place barefeeted.”

That was undeniable, and the eager children fell silent and tearful. But oh,
necessity is the mother of makeshifts among the poor! Suddenly Ailie cried:
“Bide a meenit, Tammy,” and vanished. Presently she was back, with the
difficulty overcome. “Grannie says I can wear her shoon. She doesna wear ’em
i’ the hoose, ava.”

“I’ll gie ye a saxpence, Ailie,” offered Tammy.

The sordid bargain shocked no feeling of these tenement bairns nor marred
their pleasure in the adventure. Presently there was a tap-tap-tapping of
crutches on the heavy gallery that fronted the Cunzie Neuk, and on the
stairs that descended from it to the steep and curving Row. The lassie
draped a fragment of an old plaid deftly over her thinly clad shoulders,
climbed through the window, to the pediment of the classic tomb that blocked
it, and dropped into the kirkyard. To her surprise Bobby was there at her
feet, frantically wagging his tail, and he raced her to the gate. She caught
him on the steps of th dining-room, and held his wriggling little body fast
until Tammy came up.

It was a tumultuous little group that burst in upon the astonished landlord:
barking fluff of an excited dog, flying lassie in clattering big shoes, and
wee, tapping Tammy. They literally fell upon him when he was engaged in
counting out his money.

“Whaur did you find him?” asked Mr Traill in bewilderment.

Six-year-old Ailie slipped a shy finger into her mouth, and looked to the
very much more mature five-year-old crippled laddie to answer:

“He was i’ the kirkyaird.”

“Sittin’ upon a stane by ’is ainser,” added Ailie.

“An' no' hidin', ava. It was juist like he was leevin’ there.”

“An’ syne, when I drapped oot o' the window he louped at me so bonny, an' I
couldna keep up wi' ’im to the gate.”

Wonder of wonders! It was plain that Bobby had made his way back from the
hill farm and, from his appearance and manner, as well as from this account,
it was equally clear that some happy change in his fortunes had taken place.
He sat up on his haunches listening with interest and lolling his tongue!
And that was a thing the bereft little dog had not done since his master
died. In the first pause in the talk he rose and begged for his dinner.

“Noo, what am I to pay? It took ane, twa, three o’ ye to fetch ane sma* dog.
A saxpence for the laddie, a saxpence for the lassie, an’ a bit meal for
Bobby.”

While he was putting the plate down under the settle Mr. Traill heard an
amazed whisper: “He’s gien the doggie a chuckie bane.” The landlord switched
the plate from under Bobby’s protesting little muzzle and turned to catch
the hungry look on the faces of the children. Chicken, indeed, for a little
dog, before these ill-fed bairns! Mr. Traill had a brilliant thought.

“Preserve me! I didna think to eat ma ain dinner. I hae so muckle to eat I
canna eat it by ma lane.”

The idea of having too much to eat was so preposterously funny that Tammy
doubled up with laughter and nearly tumbled over his crutches. Mr. Traill
set him upright again.

“Did ye ever gang on a picnic, baimies?” And what was a picnic? Tammy
ventured the opinion that it might be some kind of a cart for lame laddies
to ride in.

“Ay, ye could. It’s the bonniest of a’ when ye’re no’ expectin’ it. I aye
keep a picnic hidden i’ the ingleneuk aboon.” He suddenly swung Tammy up on
his shoulder, and calling, gaily, “Come awa’,” went out the door, through
another beside it, and up a flight of stairs to the dining-room above. A
fire burned there in the grate, the tables were covered with linen, and
there were blooming flowers in pots in the front windows. Patrons from the
University, and the well-to-do streets and squares to the south and east,
made of this upper room a sort of club in the evenings. At four o’clock in
the afternoon there were no guests.

“Noo,” said Mr. Traill, when his overcome little guests were seated at a
table in the ingle-nook. “A picnic is whaur ye hae onything ye fancy to eat;
gude things ye wullna be haein* ilka day, ye mind." He rang a call-bell, and
a grinning waiter laddie popped up so quickly the lassie caught her breath.

“Eneugh broo for aince," said Tammy.

“Porridge that isna burned," suggested Ailie. Such pitiful poverty of the
imagination!

“Nae, it’s bread, an* butter, an’ strawberry jam, an’ tea wi’ cream an*
sugar, an’ cauld chuckie at a snawy picnic," announced Mr. Traill. And there
it was, served very quickly and silently, after some manner of magic. Bobby
had to stand on the fourth chair to eat his dinner, and when he had
despatched it he sat up and viewed the little party with the liveliest
interest and happiness.

“Tammy," Ailie said, when her shyness had worn off, “it’s like the grand
tales ye mak’ up i’ yer heid."

“Eh, laddie, do ye noo?" Mr. Traill suddenly had a terrible “cauld in ’is
heid,” that made his eyes water. “Hoo auld are ye?”

“Five, gangin’ on sax.”

“Losh! I thoucht ye war fifty, gangin’ on saxty.” Laughter saved the day
from overmoist emotions. And presently Mr. Traill was able to say in a
business-like tone:

“We’ll hae to tak’ ye to the infirmary. An’ if they canna mak’ yer legs ower
ye’ll get a pair o’ braw crutches that are the niest thing to gude legs. An’
syne we’ll see if there’s no’ a place in Heriot’s for a sma’ laddie that
mak’s up bonny tales o’ his ain in the murky auld Cunzie Neuk.” Now the gay
little feast was eaten, and early dark was coming on. If Mr. Traill had
entertained the hope that Bobby had recovered from his grief and might
remain with him he was disappointed. The little dog began to be restless. He
ran to the door and back; he begged, and he scratched on the panel. And then
he yelped! As soon as the door was opened he shot out of it, tumbled down
the stairway and waited at the foot impatiently for the lower door to be
unlatched. Ailie’s thin, swift legs were left behind when Bobby dashed to
the kirkyard.

Tammy followed at a surprising pace on his xude crutches, and Mr. Traill
brought up the rear. If the children could not smuggle the frantic little
dog inside the landlord meant to put him over the wicket and, if necessary,
to have it out with the caretaker, and then to go before the kirk minister
and officers with his plea. He was still concealed by the buildings, from
the alcoved gate, when he heard Mr. Brown's gruff voice taking the
frightened bairns to task.

The children fled. Peeping around the angle of the Book Hunter’s Stall, Mr.
Traill saw the caretaker lift Bobby over the wicket to his arms,-and start
with him toward the lodge. He was perishing with curiosity about this
astonishing change of front on the part of Mr. Brown, but it was a delicate
situation in which it seemed best not to meddle. He went slowly back to the
restaurant, begrudging Bobby to the luckier caretaker.

His envy was premature. Mr. Brown set Bobby inside the lodge kitchen and
announced briefly to his wife: “The bit dog wull sleep i’ the hoose the
nicht.” And he went about some business at the upper end of the kirkyard.
When he came in an hour later Bobby was gone.

“I couldna keep ’im in, Jamie. He didna blatter, but he greeted so sair to
be let oot, an syne he scratched a’ the paint aff the door,”

He slammed the door and stormed angrily around the kirk. It was still light
enough to see the little creature on the snowy mound andr indeed, Bobby got
up and wagged his tail in friendly greeting. At that all the bluster went
out of the man, and he began to argue the matter with the dog.

“Come awa\ Bobby. Ye canna be leevin* i* the kirkyaird.”

Bobby was of a different opinion. He turned around and around, thoughtfully,
several times, then sat up on the grave. Entirely willing to spend a social
hour with his new friend, he fixed his eyes hospitably upon him. Mr. Brown
dropped to the slab, lighted his pipe, and smoked for a time, to compose his
agitated mind. By and by he got up briskly and stooped to lift the little
dog. At that Bobby dug his claws in the clods and resisted with all his
muscular body and determined mind. He clung to the grave so desperately, and
looked up so piteously, that the caretaker surrendered. And there was snod
Mistress Jeanie, forgetting her spotless gown and kneeling in the snow.

“Puir Bobby, puir wee Bobby! ’ she cried, and her tears fell on the little
tousled head. The caretaker strode abruptly away and waited for the wifie in
the shadow of the auld kirk. Bobby lifted his muzzle and licked the
caressing hand. Then he curled himself up comfortably on the mound and went
to sleep.

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